Home » Woman uses her super sense of smell to help scientists detect Parkinson’s in minutes

Woman uses her super sense of smell to help scientists detect Parkinson’s in minutes

We don’t always choose our gifts. Joy Milne’s superpower, one she inherited from her mother’s side of the family, was having a highly acute sense of smell. Milne might have never used her olfactory talent as a force for good had it not been for her late husband, Les Milne.

According to NPR, Les and Joy met in their teens and it was love at first sniff. “He had a lovely male musk smell. He really did,” she told NPR.

After many years of a happy marriage, Joy noticed her husband, then in his 30s, had developed an “overpowering sort of nasty yeast smell.” The running joke-slash-complaint was that Les “wasn’t washing enough.”
Eventually Les’ scent wouldn’t be the only thing to change. Joy told NPR that her once funny, thoughtful husband completely transformed, becoming “moody,” irritable, and even aggressive. He wouldn’t receive a proper Parkinson’s diagnosis until the age of 45.

Joy didn’t suspect that she could somehow detect the disease until going with Les to a Parkinson’s support group and noticing that the same distinctive smell seemed to fill the room. After sharing the discovery with her husband, she knew she had to take action.